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A brilliant historical mystery series begins: in gaslit Victorian London, writer Thomas De Quincey must become a detective to clear his own name.

Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, is the major suspect in a series of ferocious mass murders identical to ones that terrorized London forty-three years earlier.

The blueprint for the killings seems to be De Quincey’s essay On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts. Desperate to clear his name but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his devoted daughter Emily and a pair of determined Scotland Yard detectives.

In Murder as a Fine Art, David Morrell plucks De Quincey, Victorian London, and the Ratcliffe Highway murders from history. Fogbound streets become a battleground between a literary star and a brilliant murderer, whose lives are linked by secrets long buried but never forgotten.

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Thomas and Emily De Quincey

"A literary thriller that pushes the envelope of fear...Morrell's thorough and erudite research of the people and cultures of the British Empire's heyday informs every page."
Associated Press
"Morrell writes action scenes like nobody's business."
New York Times Book Review
"A brilliantly plotted thriller that will take you to the cobble-stoned streets of Victorian London."
Entertainment Weekly
"An absolute master of the thriller."
Dean Koontz
"Military-thriller writer Morrell switches genres here in a riveting novel packed with edifying historical minutiae seamlessly inserted into a story narrated in part by De Quincey's daughter and partly in revealing, dialogue-rich prose."
Booklist, starred review
"Brilliant. Everything works--the horrifying depiction of the murders, the asides explaining the impact of train travel on English society, nail-biting action sequences--making this book an epitome of the intelligent page-turner."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
" Murder as a Fine Art is a masterpiece-I don't use that word lightly-a fantastic historical thriller, beautifully written, intricately plotted, and populated with unforgettable characters. It brilliantly re-creates the London of gaslit streets, fogs, hansom cabs, and Scotland Yard. If you liked The Alienist, you will absolutely love this book. I was spellbound from the first page to last."
Douglas Preston, coauthor of the #1 bestseller Cold Vengeance
"London 1854, noxious yellow fogs, reeking slums, intrigues in high places, murders most foul, but instead of Sherlock Holmes solving crimes via the fine art of deduction, we have the historical English Opium-Eater himself, Thomas De Quincey. David Morrell fans-and they are legion-can look forward to celebrating Murder as a Fine Art as one of their favorite author's strongest and boldest books in years."
Dan Simmons, author of Drood and The Terror
"Morrell's use of De Quincey's life is absolutely amazing. I literally couldn't put it down: I felt as though I were in Dickens as he described London's fog and in Wilkie Collins when we entered Emily's diary. There were beautiful touches all the way through. Murder as a Fine Art is a triumph."
Robert Morrison, author of The English Opium Eater
"The finest thriller writer living today, bar none."
Steve Berry

On Sale: Jun 10, 2014
Page Count: 384 pages
Publisher: Mulholland Books
ISBN-13: 9780316216784

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David Morrell

About the Author

David Morrell is an Edgar and Anthony Award finalist, a Nero and Macavity winner, and recipient of the prestigious career-achievement ThrillerMaster award from the International Thriller Writers. He has written twenty-nine works of fiction, which have been translated into thirty languages. He is also a former literature professor at the University of Iowa and received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University.

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